First published in the TriTown Transcript
Well it was a doozy of a year end. The flu ripped through our community and nearly half of the students in the middle and high schools where our two girls attend, got sick.
They cancelled practices, lessons, games, a semi-formal dance and a Christmas concert. It was as if both the rapture and the zombie apocalypse occurred simultaneously. That’s a tricky theological scenario to create, but as a person who works in the church, I feel qualified to say my simile is spot on.
At Casa Baird, we contracted an early version and so we were among the living who walked through the tatters of December. To boost our spirits, I kept some of our plans, including a nail appointment I’d made in advance of the school semi-formal, now cancelled, and the one party that I was still attending with my husband.
“What color should I paint my nails?” I asked as we entered the salon. I tended to gravitate toward variations on the theme of dull and boring.
“Seriously?” my nearly 13-year-old asked, looking at the polish bottles I’d collected in front of me. She had chosen a fun, festive, deep blue that looked like ice crystals waving through the air.
“The problem,” I explained, “is that if I go with a flashy color, I’m stuck with it in my normal life when the holidays are over and it’s just January.”
Meanwhile, my older daughter chose a glittery gold that would have matched her semi-formal shoes in some alternate universe where she would have worn them. “I love my color! It’s perfect!”
Her confidence was refreshing but not, apparently, contagious. I chose a conservative color that would not inspire any excitement and sat down between my daughters in a row of nail stations.
Just then the lady on my younger daughter’s left chose a deep red.
“Oh,” I exclaimed, leaning across stations, “that’s pretty!”
My youngest hissed. “Mom! Stop it!”
I waved her off. “What color is that?” The technician held up the bottle.
My daughter whispered through her teeth. “Your color is fine!”
I ignored her. “I think I’m going to switch to that. It’s more of a maroon and will give me a festive pop without being too crazy.”
My technician smiled and got the new polish.
But then the lady to my right, just past my increasingly golden older daughter, began getting her color applied. It was fire engine red on steroids. It was outrageous.
“Wow!” I said, and leaned towards her. “That’s quite a bold red.”
The lady laughed. “It’s the holidays. Be bold or go home!”
I looked at my conservative color, and the recently acquired maroon. My youngest looked pointedly across the salon, sensing the coming storm and willing herself to be anywhere else.
I leaned back over my eldest, who could care less what was going on around her as long as her nails continued to look like a Fort Knox break in, and asked the lady with the bright red, “What do you think about your color for, say, a Christmas ‘barn party’? I’m going to one tonight and I’m wearing red and black cowboy boots. I was thinking this maroon color was festive…”
She gazed down at my polish and gasped. “Sweet Heavens!!”
The salon went quiet and my younger daughter vanished into an explosion of emotions none of which I could pay attention to, so captivated was I by the lady’s exclamation.
“You can NOT wear that!!” She cried, flickering her fingers like so many balls of crackling red fire. “That color is purple!! What are you thinking? That is totally wrong.”
Something stirred deep within me, but I tried to reason. “Well, I mean, it’s actually maroon, and I thought it would be more practical…”
“Who wants to be practical!? It’s Christmas!” She took a deep breath shaking her head. “Purple with red cowboy boots!! I have never!”
I knew she was right. I chose a boring color instead of a bold color. I chose mediocre when I could have brilliance.
“I’ll switch to that red.” I announced to my technician who was already on her way to find the bottle.
Best I can tell, for all the new year talk, nothing new actually happens in January. Kids still want dinner every night and to be driven to a billion places. For most of us, January is not the beginning, but rather smack in the middle of our actual lived year. Perhaps minus the plague.
But the boldness and the joy and the light doesn’t need to end just because the month flips. The whole point of the Christmas story that my family celebrates is that something — Someone — bold and brilliant came so that true Joy could be ongoing, even during the routine.
My nails will still be red come January (my salon is really good!). And they will look a little out of place in my regular life, but they’ll remind me that the brilliance of the holidays should shine all year long.